Absorbent articles such as diapers, training pants or incontinence garments desirably provide a close, comfortable fit about the wearer and contain body exudates. Disposable absorbent articles can be secured about the wearer by a variety of fastening systems. Conventional diapers have included a front waist portion and a back waist portion that are releasably connected about the hips of the wearer during use by fastening systems such as adhesive tape fasteners or hook and loop fasteners. Typically, when a user dons the article, the hook tabs and the back waist area are lapped over the front waist area of the article and the hook tabs are secured to the loop panel in the front waist area. The front and back waist areas create the waist opening and a portion of the front and back waist areas overlap each other in surface-to-surface contact.
The performance and fit of the absorbent article is typically improved by providing tension around the waist opening and leg openings of the article through the addition of extensible materials. It is desirable for the absorbent article to maintain its initial fastened position during use so as to maintain proper tension and ultimately proper fit. It is also desirable for absorbent articles to resist radial shifting in the overlap region between the front and back waist areas so as to maintain both the desired leg tension and the desired waist tension. This is complicated in that typically the materials that make up the front and back waist areas of absorbent articles have relatively low coefficients of friction when in surface-to-surface contact with one another. Additionally, the dynamic movement of the user's legs can cause additional shifting and the present inventors have observed that diapers shift by a greater amount in the portion of the overlap region proximate the leg opening as compared to the portion of the overlap region proximate the waist opening. In total, this shifting may be undesirable because of actual or perceived loss of fit. In other words, a user may initially attach the diaper about the waist and legs of a wearer in a desired configuration to achieve a desired fit. However, after some use, the configuration may change and the actual and/or perceived fit may be unsatisfactory.
Thus, there exists a need for a fit system to address these and other fit maintenance needs.